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Wednesday, November 28, 2012

As usual the professor checked the homework. The class was pretty small today. I wonder why. Anyway the professor showed us some DVD video on how Disney animates their cartoons. He showed the class how to do the "S" Wave animation, which I have already completed and posted my video of. The main highlight of today was all about our Final. On December 12th we are to hand in a DVD of our work and 2 Pictures.

*The first picture will be the original sketch of your model sheet. (Yes, you must hand in the original model sheet so if you're in love with it, make a copy and part ways with the original.)

*The second picture will be the photoshopped version of your model sheet printed on gloss paper. (Yes, it must be printed on gloss paper. If you print it on normal paper, the professor will not accept it. It will look like crap. You can go to the Equipment Lab with your Photoshopped model sheet on a flash drive and ask them to print it on glossy paper for you.)

*The DVD must contain a copy of your Photoshopped model sheet: the actual pdf file and rendered movies of the animations we have been doing throughout the semester.

*Label the DVD with your full name, cell phone number and e-mail address.

Notes:

When Photoshopping your model sheets, use the example model sheet of OtterButt for format reference. The first sketch of your character should be in red showing the rough drafting of your character. Next to that should be a full view of your character turning around. The middle drawing of your figure should be the largest full view of your character, colored with a cast shadow. To the left of the main drawing you should include 4-5 facial expressions and to the right you will include 4 full body poses of your character.

Today's class was all about catching up with the Thursday Class. Because none of us besides Jon and a couple others were there on Thursday, the professor had to teach the Wednesday Class what the Thursday Class was working on. In other words, we are behind the Thursday class by a week and their Day 10 is our Day 11. The Thursday Class will most likely be learning the Seaweed Animation today for their Day 11. Instead of teaching the ball project all over again, (because Jon did that for me) I'm going to show you what I learned for the Seaweed Animation. If you need to do the Ball Overlap exercise you can click on any of the Day 10 links. If you're already done with your Ball Overlap you can read up on this post and complete your Seaweed Animation.

The professor went over it briefly, so that he could teach the rest of the class the previous animation. Nevertheless, Jon and I should be able to figure it out without much of a hassle (at least I already have). Figuring out this animation was as easy as observing the following pictures:

Imagine that straight vertical line is your seaweed in still water. The sideways "figure 8" is the path the tip of your seaweed will be traveling. To keep track of the tip of seaweed I found it easier to draw a bubble at the tip for each frame acting as a tick mark. Your tick marks should follow along the figure 8 in the direction the arrows are pointing. The tip of the seaweed will start at the center and trace through the line headed in the upper right direction of the figure 8. You can use the tip of your pinky to measure the distances for each tick mark. At first the tick marks will be at least one pinky tip away from each other.

A current comes by in the ocean and your seaweed begins to sway gracefully Your first 6 lines will look like this. Notice how the line curves the most like an "S" when it reaches frame 6. Observe lines 1-6 as your tick mark sways to the right. The base of your seaweed line will begin its sway to the left at frame 3, while the tip of frame 3's seaweed line is still headed to the right. It also helps to imagine the line as a mouse or snake tail.

The current pulls backward and your seaweed sways to the left. Starting at frame 7 the tip of your seaweed line will take a curve around the right side of your figure 8 and begin it's sway to the left. Picture a whip or a lasso as your seaweed is pulled out to the left and follow the lines and tick marks exactly as shown. The base of your seaweed will begin its sway to the right at frame 10. In frame 15 the tip of your seaweed will make its curve around the left side of the figure 8. Frames 15 and 16 are more than one pinkey space away from each-other, as frame 16 will quickly loop into frame 1.

If you drew all of your lines accordingly your master sheet should look something like this:

If you think you've got it right you are ready to trace each line onto a separate sheet of clean paper. The professor suggests you use your smaller animation paper for this exercise. Draw frames 1-16 and then film them to test the flow of your seaweed. If all looks well you can draw over each frame to make them look more like seaweed or an object of your choice. Be sure to include a background and film it looping on 3's, 2's and 1's as usual with 24-48 blank frames in between each speed.

The professor checked our Character Punch Antic Animations, but he still hasn't checked our Vilppu sketches so we've got 2-3 weeks worth of sketches to show him. I hope he checks them the next class because I'm getting tired of carrying around my old sketch book. I've already moved on to the new sketchbook he gave us. For homework he assigned us fairly easy work- NO MORE VILPPU! Instead he wants us to Practice Gesture Figure Drawings.

The professor also checked out our character model sheets. You should have a turn around of your character as well as poses and facial expressions. Also for homework: Scan your model sheets and Photoshop them.

Don't know how to Photoshop?- Gary Torres will be giving a brief Photoshop lesson Friday 11/16/12 at BC's Westminster Hall, Room B16 at 4 pm. I will be there as well.

Monday, November 12, 2012

I finished my Looping Overlapping Action Character Ball and the Twist version. It only took two nights of work from 6pm straight to 11pm. (That's 10 hours max.) That little guy looks like he's having just as much fun as I had drawing him. Enjoy!

A great friend of mine was able to attend the 2D Animation Class on Thursday and he took notes for me to post on the blog. I wasn't able to make it to the class because it was my daughter's 3rd Birthday, so Jon recorded everything for me and put it in an e-mail. Everything after this paragraph is what Jon's e-mail said word for word and I give him full credit. Maybe I should make him the second admin of the site huh? After all I believe he is the best and most successful student in my class. LOL Anyway, follow his example and get your homework done. I'll see you all next class! :)

So, today, we worked on stretch and squash with a ball, mixed with some overlapping action.

We began by breaking down the animation to the ball alone. We did it as we normally would, with a timing chart of 1-5 but with a few minor differences. Frames 1-5 involved the ball going downwards.

Also, it's suggested to not put more than 2-3 inches between the apex and the nadir so as to keep the space controlled.

Then the timing changed to be frames 5-1, because now we were moving the ball upwards to the starting position.

Despite what the link looks like, the final frame isn't 11, it's 1, because Potuto wants this to loop up and down.
Then we added the scarf onto the head before character details. Now, as the scarf moves down it must trail behind the character. And when he reaches the bottom, it must sort of collapse behind him.

When the character is going up, the scarf must be pointing down until the character reaches the 9th and 11th frame, which is when he slowly must return to the same frame 1 position.

*When the character is on frames 5,6,7 a sort of ring forms around him to show the impact. It can be anything, either a splash of water, a dust cloud, rocks, etc.

*Remember to do a cast shadow on the floor. As the ball gets closer to the ground, the shadow will get bigger (except when the ball stretches vertically). And will shrink as it moves higher.

We are allowed to make our own characters again, but they must have the basic fundamentals of this one. (I.E Scarf on head.)
He then said to film it, but unlike the other animations we made for class, he wants it to loop. He doesn't want a title screen, a blank first page, a 48 second delay for the end. He just wants it to loop. However, we still have to do it on 1s, 2s, and 3s, just with no 48 second delay between each one.

2.) So looking back to the link, Mr. Potuto also wants us to make an animation similar to the first video where the ball will twist as it rises and falls. However, he didn't give us details on how to draw it, since he wants us to figure that out. The filming process is very similar except for one crucial detail. He wants us to combine it with the first animation.

So essentially he wants us to do two separate videos. One where the ball will just bounce up and down regularly in a loop, and a second video where it begins with the ball just jumping up and down, until it seamlessly transitions into the ball twisting. That's due Next Wednesday.

Yesterday, Thursday, November 8th, 2012, was my daughter's 3rd Birthday. I took her out in the snow to play for a couple hours. She wanted to build a snow man and at first she said she wanted to make a puppy, then she mentioned a mouse and afterwards she shouted "Mommy, I make Goofy!" That's when I got the idea to sculpt a disney character; a Minnie Mouse "snow-woman" as a birthday gift for my daughter. It started off looking like Mickey of course. All we needed was a bow to make it female. I snipped some black buttons off of an old coat of mine for the eyes. When it was do e we carried it to the front of the house and sat it on the porch to greet family when they came home. It had completely melted by night though. Reminds me of the time it snowed before my birthday and I got to make a huge 8 foot Pillsbury Dough Boy Snowman in the baseball field at Brookside Park and some kids destroyed it in the morning, but that's another story. Here are the results of our Minnie Mouse "Snow-Woman" Project. Enjoy and thanks for viewing! :)

(Side Note: The pictures may be out of order because I'm posting this through my iPhone.)

Wednesday, November 7, 2012

BC has closed early due to the power outage again. It's probably because of the snow storm that's hitting us right now. Anyway they cancelled all classes and kicked us out so now I'm home. I was really looking forward to class though. I guess maybe I'll do some sackbot programming on LBP.

Tuesday, November 6, 2012

The character you're about to see is based off of myself pretty much. I figured if I'm going to be drawing a character for the rest of my school years it may as well be me, because I find my multiple personalities quite entertaining. Even though this character was modeled after me I'm unsure of what kind of clothing, hair style or name to give her. I don't have a very big wardrobe of clothing and I don't own anything unique or flashy. And I only wear my hear in a pony tail on a bad hair day, btw, so her hair styles may change from time to time based on how I may be wearing my hear when I draw her. If any of you have name ideas, I'm all ears! Here are just some of the facial expressions I came up with. Enjoy!

I wish I knew what to call her...

Faced forward.

Somebody looks mad...

Shocked, Surprised, Dumbfounded.

Laughing and Giggling.

A little pout.

Pleading.

Profile view.

She knows your secret, you know who you are.

This is one of the slightly modified outfits I wore pretty much all summer.

So here is my completed Character Punch Antic Version 1. I added sound to mine but it only plays for the first punch and the last 2 punches are silent. I couldn't figure out how to get the sounds to play more than once on the FlipBook creator. Next time I'll used Windows Movie Maker. Enjoy for now!

Sunday, November 4, 2012

Here are just some practice sketches I did, waiting for school to re-open this Monday.

I was going through an old LIFE: America's Weekend Magazine when I found these poses. I thought it would be great practice because I've never drawn poses like these before and I do admire poses that look as if the figure is dancing.

The following are my favorite female cartoon characters:

Chel from The Road To Eldorado

Who doesn't love a character with sex appeal now and then? LOL

Crysta from FernGully: The Last Rainforest

She's fun, naive and magical.

Thumbelina from Don Bluth's Thumbelina

Yet another fairy, this one doesn't know it yet though. Little people dream big. I also admired that she was voiced by one of my favorite voice actor's Jodi Benson.

Esmeralda from The Hunchback Of Notre Dame

I Loved the way this character danced and fought, but most of all I liked how kind she was to Quasimodo.

Nina from Lilo & Stitch

I love this one the most because she's very dynamic when they animate her running and her facial features are unique compared to other Disney girls.

Princess Jasmine from Aladdin

I liked her because she was a princess that didn't want to be a princess, which reminded me of myself. My mother always wanted me to be proper and lady like but I always felt like I wanted to escape that pressure.

Pocahontas from Disney's Pocahontas

I couldn't get the face right on this one because in every picture I found of her I noticed her eyes were slightly bigger or smaller compared to the head. I just couldn't make up my mind and I confused myself. Oh well, she's still on of my favorite characters mainly because she's a brave, curious and adventurous native woman.

Tiana from The Princess & The Frog

The very first African American Disney Princess. I loved her because she was all about working hard to earn what you want in life and that always encouraged me to do my best.

Megara from Disney's Hercules

I just loved the style of this character, pretty much.

Ariel from The Little Mermaid

She was also a very adventurous character with beautiful vocals also voiced by Jodi Benson.

This was my favorite Disney Movie as a child. I just loved singing along especially to "Part Of Your World".

The full cast of my favorites. To be honest with you This is my first attempt to draw all of these characters and I don't think I did too badly. Now I'm going to use what I've learned from these characters to create my, one unique character for animation.

Friday, November 2, 2012

The professor sent us some e-mails with inspirational links. I thought the viewers besides my classmates might be interested in checking them out too. After viewing these links, I started to think a little differently. I've decided to create a new character based off of myself and as I grow, so will my character. I believe this is the best choice because I'll be drawing this character for the rest of my school years and this way I wont get bored. Maybe some of you should reconsider what kind of character you would like to continuously draw in case you are also getting bored.